


Sing a Song of Sixpence

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Alternian Nights [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Best Friends, Child Death, Dystopia, FLARP, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Mind Games, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Violence, cotton candy bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi and Vriska on a typical Team Scourge Flarp campaign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing a Song of Sixpence

**Author's Note:**

> This story started as a fill for a Three Sentence Ficathon prompt ([any, any, toss a coin](http://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/89310.html?thread=3357918#cmt3357918)), but it quickly became obvious that it wouldn't fit the format restrictions. So I kept writing, and after a while it occurred to me that it also works as a [Cotton Candy Bingo](http://cottoncandy_bingo.dreamwidth.org) fill, for the prompt: _money_. So that is what it is now. I have said so, and my word is law. *grin*
> 
> (Yes, I am calling this fluff despite it being a story about Terezi and Vriska casually killing two other kids. Fluff is relative and Alternia is a deeply fucked-up world.)

"Do you see this coin?" Terezi asks, crouching down in the carpet of last season's leaves to display the caegar to her terrified opponents. Behind her, Vriska snickers as she sorts through their sylladexes, pocketing anything shiny and tossing the rest aside to lie with their confiscated weapons. Terezi ignores her partner with the ease of long familiarity, and continues: "In a moment, I will flip it. If it lands heads up, I will kill you. Otherwise you are free to go. Do you understand?"

The two trolls -- one olive, one muddy yellow-brown, both nearly two sweeps older than Terezi -- exchange an all-too-readable look. "Those terms exactly?" the yellowblood asks, her voice wobbly despite the dull imitation of cunning kindling behind her eyes.

"Those terms exactly," Terezi agrees.

"We understand," the oliveblood says, straightening on his knees beside his partner.

Terezi flips the coin. It spins through the air, the few slivers of green and purple moonlight that penetrate the forest canopy reflecting off its sides in dizzying blinks.

The oliveblood snatches it from the air before it can land.

Terezi grins. "I wondered if you would spot that loophole! Not bad. As promised, you are free to go." She stands and turns her back, a blatant sign of disrespect. It takes less than a second to weigh the oliveblood's speed, the yellowblood's brain, and their obvious disgust at surrendering to younger trolls. She counts down in her head: _six, five, four, three, two, one_.

Terezi throws herself flat to the trampled ground. The oliveblood's fist whistles through the air overhead; his cry of surprise jerks the yellowblood's attention back from her dash over to their weapons and supplies.

Terezi rolls neatly to her feet, sword in hand, and shakes her head at their baffled expressions. "I said you would be free to go. I never said I wouldn't defend myself if you broke that implicit truce. It's a shame you weren't clever enough to cut your losses while you could."

"We knew they were cheaters -- that's why we picked them," Vriska says, sauntering up to rest her chin on Terezi's shoulder. She is blocking Terezi's sword arm, but that hardly matters anymore; their opponents have gone stiff as statues, caught in Vriska's psychic grip. "I don't know why you keep giving assholes a chance to get away."

"I prefer to bring overwhelming evidence to my cases," Terezi says, and elbows Vriska in the ribs. "Are you done playing pirate?"

" _Playing_ pirate? I _am_ a pirate!" Vriska says, stepping back tossing her hair rather than admit Terezi's strike hit home. "But yeah, I grabbed all the stuff worth grabbing, which wasn't much. These guys aren't just cheaters, they're _pathetic_ cheaters. What's the point in breaking rules if you don't get some sweet loot for your trouble?"

Terezi shrugs. "I don't know. Furthermore, in a shocking development, I don't care!" She turns back toward their trapped prey. "I pronounce you guilty of persistent cheating at Flarp and also of gross stupidity. The sentence is death."

She skewers the two trolls neatly through their hearts, pausing only to retrieve her coin from the oliveblood's pocket. Then she wipes her sword on the fallen, half-rotted leaves at her feet while Vriska captchalogues the corpses. Waste not, want not -- there are other ways to feed her partner's lusus, but this one also weeds out the evil and unfit (which is a legislacerator's chief duty after upholding the honor of the empire) and is, frankly, _fun_.

"They were almost clever at the end," Terezi says wistfully as she and Vriska start the hike back from the designated campaign area to her hive. "Maybe someday we'll find some trolls worth playing with more than once."

"Yeah right, the whole point of these campaigns is that we're always playing scum," Vriska scoffs. Then she grimaces, stuffs her hands in her jacket pockets, and says, head turned aside as if talking to the trees rather than Terezi: "But if you want to play wiggler style, I know a guy who plays death-free campaigns with this super-obnoxious girl. They're both pretty weird -- he's into Fiduspawn and she thinks she's an archeologist -- but they're not _stupid_. Maybe I could see if they're not too chicken to play us sometime."

Terezi stops and catches Vriska's shoulder. "But what about our deal?"

Vriska shrugs. "It's not like she'll starve if I cut down on her feeding schedule a little. Animals wander into her webs on their own and she can get off her fat ass if she's really feeling hungry. Besides, there's more to life than hunting criminals. You've gotta find some friends and hobbies to keep you from being a complete bore once we grow up."

Terezi raises her eyebrows. "Oh really?"

"Yes, really!" Vriska snaps.

"I bow to your superior wisdom," Terezi says, and laughs as Vriska's expression wavers between smug pride and defensive suspicion while she tries to figure out if that was a compliment or a backhanded insult. "Come on, let's get back to my hive and you can introduce me to them online. I'm sure at least one of them must have embarrassing secret stories about you that I don't already know!"

She takes off at a dead run, Vriska in hot pursuit. They crash through the trees together, laughing and shoving at each other, secure in the knowledge that they are the most dangerous things in the forest and they will always have each other's backs.


End file.
